


Two Worlds, Two Lives

by SpencerRemyLvr



Series: A Collection of Ideas [15]
Category: Criminal Minds, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Falling In Love, Flirting, Friendship, Genderbending, He's a gender switching mutant, Het and Slash, Lies, M/M, More tags later, Secrets, Slow Build, Spencer's a mutant, Spencer's always awkward, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpencerRemyLvr/pseuds/SpencerRemyLvr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remy meets a beautiful young woman and falls in love with her. Only, he doesn’t know that she has a secret. The pretty young Spencer that he met isn’t exactly who she says she is. Spencer keeps her true identity secret from Remy. How can she tell him that her mutant powers allow her to switch from man to woman? The person he’s fallen in love with is young, petite, pretty, and female. Spencer is tall, shy, awkward, not in the least bit pretty, and most definitely male. Eventually, the secrets and lies become too much. The truth always comes out in the end. Will their relationship survive it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Worlds, Two Lives

**Author's Note:**

> This story is unfinished, but I'm posting this prologue to see if there's anyone even interested in reading it. If you are, let me know, and subscribe here! If enough of you want it, I'll start posting it once it's finished. I already have a few chapters done :)

The day that Spencer Reid was born was a day of celebration for Diana Reid. She’d wanted a child of her own for so very long and getting pregnant hadn’t been an easy task. With her illness and the medications that she had to take for it there had been considerable risk behind her getting pregnant. Not to mention the ways that the medication lowered her chances of conceiving. So when one month came around and that ‘monthly visitor’ hadn’t showed up, she didn’t even think that she might be pregnant. She and her husband had long ago lost hope of that. It wasn’t until she was almost three months along that she finally went to the doctor and got the news. She’d gone in there hoping to figure out why her periods had vanished, thinking that it must be some side effect of the new medication she’d started, and walked out with the news that she was going to be a _mother_.

She and William had celebrated. Of course, William was worried about things. When didn’t he? Bless the man, he always worried for her, looking after her like no one ever had. It was one of the things she loved about him. He took care of her without belittling her intelligence or strength. So though he was worried about this, he was also supportive, and he trusted her when she assured him that she and the doctors had talked this out and planned how to get her and the baby safely through the pregnancy. He trusted her and put his full support behind her. She didn’t know how she would’ve made it through the pregnancy without him.

When her episodes came on, he was there for her, taking care of her and keeping her as calm as he could. When her paranoia was out of control, he patiently talked her down. Paranoid schizophrenia wasn’t something that could easily be lived with without being managed by medication. It took a lot of dedication and hard work on both their parts. He was her rock; steady and strong. When the time came for their child to be born, a whole month early, he was the calm one, getting her to the hospital in plenty of time for their child to be born safely. He was there when their son was born. Spencer Reid, one month premature, didn’t cry when he was brought into the world. Diana always laughed later and told people she knew from the get-go that her boy was smart. He was quiet from the minute he came out, those big brown eyes of his looking up at her like he was trying to figure her out.  A tiny little thing, just five pounds eleven ounces, and he captured the hearts of his parents completely. When they brought him home a week later, after he spent a little time in the NICU to make sure he was safe from his premature birth, his parents were thrilled. They had their child they wanted, Diana was back on her medication, and everything seemed to be going right.

Spencer was two weeks old when he changed for the first time. Lucky for both his parents, they were there when it was discovered. To their embarrassment, they didn’t notice at first. Nothing about Spencer looked all that different, as he was mostly swaddled in his blankets and still so small, so new. It wasn’t until Diana had finished feeding him and William was changing him that they discovered what was going on. When William opened his son’s diaper, he was stunned by what he found. Or, more accurately, what he didn’t find.

“Di!” He called out, panic bright in his voice. “Diana!”

Of course Diana rushed over, afraid of what she would find, of what could’ve put that panic in her husband’s voice. What she found wasn’t at all what she expected. There, lying on the changing table, wasn’t her little son, Spencer. It was a little _girl_. A happy, sleepy little girl, with the same chocolate eyes as their sweet little Spencer, the same wispy blondish-brown hair, even the same little birthmark on the inside of her left thigh. Only, _he_ was most definitely a _she_. Even with all of that, they still hadn’t believed it, not right at first. But then—Spencer changed in front of them. While they stood there arguing over top of her, she let out a sharp cry, afraid of the loud voices, and her body _changed_. The little girl was gone and once more their little boy was lying there.

It was Diana who took it all in stride. Diana who reached out and changed Spencer's diaper and then swaddled her little child and gathered him up. William was the one who panicked.

“How is this possible?” He demanded. “Mutants don’t even get their powers until puberty!”

“ _Physical_ mutations are present from birth.” Diana told him calmly. She held her baby up to her chest and smiled at the light coo that Spencer gave. “This is just Spencer's physical mutation. His— _their_ —real mutation won’t kick in until puberty.”

“So he’s going to have _another_ power?”

“I’d assume so. There are quite a few documented cases of physical mutations that are present from birth. Hair, skin color, eye color…”

“But, changing _gender_?” William cut in. He couldn’t help his panic. All he could see was the tiny baby in Diana’s arms, his son, who had just changed into a girl and back to a boy, who would grow up being one gender and both, like two different people in one body. A child who was going to live a hard, insanely hard life. Two worlds, two lives, one soul. To add in another mutation later, it just seemed too cruel. How different was Spencer going to be? How hard would Spencer's life become?

Still, it was William who took care of the practicalities. He’d always been the one to take care of things like that. When Spencer turned six months old, he was the one who got in touch with a few people that he couldn’t exactly admit to knowing and he got the birth certificate forged for Penny Ann Ryans, born to Diana’s cousin who had just passed away a moth earlier in a car accident. William had known it was a tragedy, but he also knew he had to protect his family, and this was a way to protect his child. He got the paperwork made that said she’d given birth months before her death and there was no one left around to contest it. She’d been alone, single, isolated from pretty much all family. A hermit. No one would know any better. He was also the one who took Spencer in to a doctor that he paid very well to keep quiet and got all the necessary testing done. When Spencer changed gender, it wasn’t just that simple gender bit that changed. It was more than that. Fingerprints, blood work, all of it changed. Like twins, the doctor had said. Like identical twins, only boy and girl, and in one body. That had been when William knew he needed that birth certificate. If Spencer ever changed when he was older and something happened, he had to go to a hospital or a police station, there needed to be records of this other part of him. Proof that she existed. At the very least, he was grateful that there was enough there that people wouldn’t draw her blood and come up with his records. They were separate enough to be two people, even if they were close enough to be considered identical twins.

As Spencer grew, they never had to explain any of this to him. The only explanation that they’d had to give was that he couldn’t change in front of others. He’d never had any questions about having this other part of himself. He never seemed to feel or act different whether he was male or female. He really was the same little child inside; it was just the outer shell that changed. Because of that, he didn’t understand at first why he had to be so careful. But he listened to Diana and he kept his changes private. He didn’t show anyone and he didn’t tell anyone. As he got older, he understood more. Understood that it wasn’t all simple, black and white. He understood that he was different and accepted it. Lived with it. For him and Diana, it was no big deal.

For William, it slowly became too much. He’d stood by for so much. For the insane pregnancy, for his wife’s illness—which got progressively worse as the years went by—and for this strangeness that was his son/daughter, he’d stood by them for it all. But some people can only handle so much. As Spencer got older, the changes more noticeable when he switched, and as Diana became sicker, it was too much. Too much for one man to handle. It wasn’t his most shining moment, but William did what he felt he had to, before he went insane himself. He left. He left with one last fight and a single note. And for the first time in his life, Spencer doubted himself, and he wondered if maybe, just maybe, if he’d been a little more normal, if his father might’ve stayed.

That was the first time that Spencer truly felt just how different he really was.

Diana didn’t care. That was what she told herself in the cold nights. She didn’t care. Who needed a husband? She had her home, her books, her studies, and her beautiful child. There was nothing more that she needed. She and Spencer, they could stand against anything, even this. And when his powers came, when he hit puberty and his abilities manifested, they would handle that too. “We don’t need him.” She told Spencer, holding him to her chest and rocking him as she’d done since he was small. “He was weak, baby. He couldn’t handle us. But we don’t need him. We’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.”


End file.
